A/N: ...so I've got no excuse for being gone this long after my mentioned family emergency LOL all I can say is that I was working hard to plan out the rest of Winona's story and fighting through this chapter was the worst thing EVER. There was so much information I wanted to deliver about how the vault changed since the prior vault/Butch-centered chapter, and it was difficult determining what information was pertinent to the story, and what had to be cut out. Even with all the trimming I did, the chapter is still quite long-being one of my longest yet!-but hopefully you guys enjoy the length after my being gone so long, and, enjoy the upcoming action of this chapter... :3c

Now, just because I'm posting doesn't mean I'll be back on the story's schedule of before-at this time I'll post when I'm ready to, but I absolutely DO NOT intend on there being hilariously long hiatus' between chapters (like a year and a half long, COUGH).

If you don't already, feel free to follow me on tumblr at thecoolkidsbasement where you have the opportunity of hearing more updates from me about the story than I can obviously bring here.

Well, that's all for now! Thank you to those who've been so patient and have stuck around despite the long hiatus, thank you to those who completely forgot about this story but came back to check it out again (ROFL), and thank you to those who're just picking my story up now!

It feels so good to say again; Happy reading, happy writing!

~The Konfessionst, signing out

Butch stood in the infirmary's doorway, watching as folks settled in for the night on the hospitality floor. They fought over spots closest to the bathrooms, despite the risk of everyone stepping over you to go, and he looked on as the territorial arguments resolved themselves, bed mats were laid down, and packaged 'clinic casseroles' (rations mixed with a little water and a lot of stale crackers to help spread the food over more meals) were passed out for dinner by the Wilkins' siblings. Jim carried the box of meal containers and Janice handed them out with a big jug of water strapped over her shoulder; anyone who wanted a drink would hold out an empty cup for her to spigot the water into… sparingly, of course, with the water restrictions still going on, but it was enough.

It was a wonder for Butch to see so many people in one place. After the Overseer's meeting those couple of weeks ago, where the atrium wasn't even a quarter full with the residents that were strong-armed into showing up, it convinced him that they were all that was left of Vault 101; the Overseer, a handful of Security guards, and just enough folks to make a dinner rush in the cafeteria.

Butch couldn't describe the relief he felt when he found out there were still more residents than that lurking around everywhere. They either couldn't go to the meeting, just like his mom, or purposely risked the consequences for reasons involving, but not limited to, fuck the Overseer that's why—and then some of these absentees ended up amongst them somehow, taken in by their once small group in the infirmary for any amount of reasons; some folks needed medical help, which Lucy closely supervised after Andy and distracted him when he decided amputation was the only course of action for a little roach bite; others came looking for rations after martial law took place and Security came and took whatever food, water, and medicine they had… 'for the good of the vault', they always said, as they left folks to starve and suffer; a handful of others arrived and begged to be taken in solely for the strength and safety in numbers—again, with martial law in place, some residents figured that being in higher population would keep their families protected.

The Kellans were a prime example of that.

When his eyes panned across the room to where the small family nested in a far corner of the hospitality floor, he spotted Mrs. Kellan draped on her side with an elbow propping her head up, and her 6-year-old daughter, Wendy, asleep against her front. Mr. Kellan sat cross-legged beside his wife, whom he seemed deeply engrossed in a serious conversation with while sporting a black eye, a broken nose, and a busted lip. Butch overheard him telling Amata that Security made a contraband search on their home and when they predictably found nothing, they took the rest of the Kellans' food and water 'for the trouble'. Mr. Kellan's facial rearrangement was nothing but a parting gift for 'obstructing justice' when he yelled at the officers to leave.

Butch watched as Mr. Kellan smiled reassuringly at his wife, as if saying the worst was behind them, while she remained unconvinced and teary-eyed. He pulled her into a desperate kiss before laying down beside her on their bed mat with little Wendy wedged comfortably between them and kissed the top of his daughter's head while Mrs. Kellan stroked her hair. The smile faded from his face once his wife shut her eyes to sleep, and Butch realized he probably wasn't anymore confident in his situation than the rest of them were about their own.

"How's it looking out there?"

Looking back to the voice behind him, he found his mom lingering in the clinic, seeming well-rested despite her exhausted smile.

"S'alright, I guess. Got more people in today." He shrugged vaguely in reply.

"That's good. We should stick together in a time like this and look out for one another." She said with her eyes panning across the floor as she came to his side, momentarily taking on a look of sorrow when she spotted the Kellan family. "I thought I heard Mike and his family was here… poor Jessica… we should make sure Wendy gets an extra blanket. Goodness, I can't remember the last time I saw a child since all this started… poor little Wendy, she must be so lonely."

"M'Sure she ain't the only one." So many people died already. Butch didn't want to think about the same happening to a kid... but his mom was right, wasn't she? When was the last time he saw a kid since all this started?

Frankly, he didn't want to think about that, either. There was already enough misery to go around for everyone. You didn't have to actively think of miserable things to bring it around.

"You eat dinner yet, Butchie? I see you working hard around here for Amata, I worry you're not eating enough."

"Not like there's much t'go around," He said with a feeble snort, and she responded with a scrutinizing look.

"How about I grab us some dinner?" She inquired hopefully as the look faded into a slight smile. "We can sit together and eat… like we use to."

Butch regarded her with soft eyes. Since being admitted for her alcoholism recovery, she became clearer with every passing day; her strength was coming back, too, and while Lucy wanted to continue monitoring her for another week, she declared that Ellen DeLoria was more than welcome to leave the infirmary and move out onto the hospitality wing with the general population. The Tunnel Snake saw her trying her fucking hardest every day to get better and stay better, and while he silently praised her in her resiliency, there was always that small, lingering voice in the back of his head telling him to tread carefully. Sure, she was trying to form a good relationship with him, but he didn't know what a good relationship with her meant anymore; when he lost the ability to forgive her and the resentment crept in; when his heart could hardly bare another lie, another broken promise, another stint at sobriety that wouldn't last no matter how much he wished it would.

Butch knew that the only thing keeping her sober now was the vault fucking going to shit, and if he dangled a vodka bottle in front of her, she'd snatch it up in a heartbeat. He would always know it would never be about him—he was never good enough to make her quit in the first place, and so made his peace with that pain a long time ago. The pain that came with the now was that he didn't know where they could go from here—he didn't know what a functional, healthy relationship with his mother would look like, what it could look like if it was even possible—…

But he was tired of climbing out on a limb that would snap under the weight of his hope.

Butch didn't know if he had it in him to try again, not now, with everything else going on.

"Sounds great, 'ma." He answered instead, feeling as if he were still stepping out onto that limb despite his resilience when his mom smiled as if relieved.

"Steak, medium-rare, with a big baked potato and butter rolls? Maybe a little green beans on the side, too?" She teased, and he threw his head back with a groan as his mouth turned into a salivating faucet.

"'Ya don't even know how fuckin' good that sounds right now." He agreed as some nearby folks who heard her joke nodded in solemn agreement and dreary cheers over their soupy casseroles.

"Watch your language, Butchie," She exclaimed through a laugh, and he grumbled an apology as she left to flag down the Wilkins siblings. "Now go on and wait by my bed, I'll be back in a minute!"

Butch watched her go, bypassing Amata on her nightly check-in around the room. Every evening, just before everyone settled in for sleep, Amata would walk the floor with a clipboard and talk with every single resident to ensure they had what they needed, and if they didn't, she'd write it on her little notepad and try her best to get it to them by the time they woke up the next morning—things like extra blankets, socks and underwear, a little extra water or shower time, or just for her to take a minute or two to listen to the grievances they had with another resident. It looked so tiring talking to that many people daily just to listen to them bitch and make demands, to do everything that she did for them constantly and asking for nothing in return but their happiness, yet she always did it flawlessly and with a personable smile on her face.

At least, the Tunnel Snake thought she was doing her nightly check in. When he realized she wasn't carrying her clipboard, and found the way she scurried around looked a little suspicious, he watched her weave about the sleeping mats and dining residents with her head down to evade eye contact with anyone. Amata hurriedly navigated the room until she was standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the next level, stopping only to give a cursory glance back over her shoulder, and then went up them all secretive-like when she was certain no one was watching her leave.

No one but him had seen her go, at least, and he stood in the infirmary doorway, frowning and puzzled. What was she up to? And why was she sneaking off to do it?

Now what kinda trouble could she be gettin' up to? Butch wondered (he'd never admit he was seriously worried, but he was) as he went toward the stairs to follow, but had taken only three or four steps before the entire wing was plunged into an impenetrable darkness. The clinic dwellers tittered quietly in alarm, their panic growing no louder than the small hum of a crowd as he heard Mr. Brotch (he told Butch to call him Edwin but that just felt weird) staggered out of the infirmary behind him on his crutches, stopping only to fumble with turning on his Pip-Boy flashlight to attract everyone's attention.

"It's alright, everyone! Just another perfectly timed black out by our ever thoughtful Overseer," He jeered, to some nervous laughs from the residents. "This is nothing new for us. The lights always turn back on eventually, so there's no reason to panic. If anyone needs a light, they're more than welcome to use their Pip-Boy, but please keep your sleeping neighbors in mind if you do."

A sparse few residents turned on their own flashlights as his permission, and Butch did the same thing just to light the rest of his way to the stairwell so he wouldn't step on anyone. Before he could move on, however, he heard his mom calling his name just behind him.

"Butch! Butchie, where are you going? We were just about to eat dinner." She asked, holding a water bottle for them to share and two small carriers of food.

"Somethin' came up, 'ma, I gotta go check it out. I'll be back in a few minutes, alright?"

"Can't it wait? You shouldn't be leaving the infirmary in a blackout, it isn't safe upstairs with the roaches, and—and Security," She frowned worriedly at his vague answer, her eyes searching his face pleadingly, and he only bobbed his head before kissing her forehead. Part of him felt guilty in taking off, especially now when he saw just how excited she must've been to have dinner with him—but Amata walking around out in the vault without someone with her rang alarm bells in his head.

Was she going up to get something?

Was she meeting someone?

Was she doing something she shouldn't have been doing? It was unlikely for Amata, but given current desperate circumstances—… She hadn't left the clinic since Wally attacked her, and he didn't know if she knew just how much upstairs had gone to shit.

His mom was right, it was dangerous.

"Don't wait up for me," He apologized back to his mother over his shoulder as he went thundering up the stairwell to the next floor.

The adjoining hallways were empty, and as he stood silently at the intersection to catch onto Amata's footfalls, the dark, empty space around him was quiet; that didn't mean he was ready to admit defeat, however.

If I was the princess, sneakin' out like a teen after curfew, came a thought, where would I be sneakin' off to?

Again, it wasn't like Amata was trapped in the infirmary and couldn't go anywhere she pleased, but it was the way in which she left that had him concerned. There were only so many places she could go, where she would go that he could think of—maybe her old apartment? Too risky, even for her, since her shithead old man never signed off on her getting her own place, said the vault rumor mill.

Butch's feet began moving on their own in the direction of the living quarters, as if they knew before he did where he had to go.

Her apartment ain't much, he decided, but it's a start.

Silence in a room of fond memories only made the quiet overbearing. The absence of laughter, of anything familiar, or warm—and Amata was foolish and didn't realize until it was too late that being in Winona's apartment again would be one of the hardest things she could make herself do. She stood with her eyes shut despite the blackout and attuned her ears to this silence, praying beyond reasonability that the walls would impart her with some desperately needed wisdom or whisper a dire secret left behind in the floral wallpaper. As if Winona left messages etched into the chrysanthemums specifically for her.

The gutted apartment remained in its agonizing silence, and yet it told her what she feared most—

There are no answers here for your questions.

The chrysanthemums know nothing.

Opening her eyes, Amata sunk down to the floor and sat cross-legged with her arms strung over her knees, turning on the dimmest setting of her Pip-Boy's flashlight so she could take in the barren bedroom. When she arrived, the door was still in disrepair from the morning of Winona's escape, left broken and ajar for anyone to walk in. The living room and bedroom were empty now with all the furniture taken, photos and paintings were pulled down, and even Winona's workbench and inventions were missing. Her bedroom walls were once plastered with blueprints like motivational posters (and Amata proudly swore she'd be able to recall every one of them if she was asked to) and pieces of her projects were always scattered across every surface the apartment had, only growing more and more cluttered with every visit Amata made. It always felt like she was stepping into a world away from the vault and everything awful about it just melted away when they were together.

Amata hoped it could make her feel that way now, and give her the peace she so desperately prayed for, but instead it was like Winona Parker had never even been there. Any modicum of her identity was absorbed back into the life cycle of materialistic possessions in Vault 101 where people were born, they collected as they grew, and got married, and had children and grandchildren, and they collected still until the very day they died, and then all those things they collected meant nothing if there was no family to leave it to.

Every couch, dinner plate, and pair of baby shoes went back unto which it came.

The vault took everything back in due time as a silent reminder that no resident ever possessed anything real or worthwhile… and now it had taken Winona. It took her best friend; it took the only other home Amata had; it took the one thing she still thought she had left aside from her memories. She couldn't risk going back to her own home where she still lived with her father until that horrible morning—and admittedly, she was risking herself even now, having left the sanctuary of the infirmary for the first time since being hospitalized—and she did so without telling a soul where she was going or why.

There was a passing thought of telling Butch at least, but she ultimately decided against it in favor of the needed quiet. Amata mainly came to Winona's apartment to be alone, to think, and to be comforted by her best friend's presence as the struggles she faced in recent days became overwhelming. Once confessing to her plans of bringing Winona home to the others, she became the unofficial leader of their rag-tag infirmary family, and that authority only grew as more residents came seeking help; they apparently saw her as a natural and compassionate successor that rivaled her paranoid father, and daily these people were begging for her advice, for her foresight despite the uncertainty of the now, for her guidance through their own problems. This strong moral responsibility she felt to them, in doing right by them, gave her a fear of failure she'd never known before and it made her question her own decisions, that trapped her and rendered her frozen from taking the first step.

How could she possibly bring them peace when she couldn't even pacify her own turmoil?

How could she promise them to fix everything, to bring Winona back to do just that, and not even know how?

Amata wanted to help them, to protect them, to serve them the best she could, and it scared her to admit that she didn't know how; it scared her to admit that she might have already failed them through inaction, when they couldn't see that their wellbeing was on her mind at every waking moment. There was a constant worry in keeping everyone fed, as the clinic casseroles were only a band-aid fix to the food problems, and the lack of water was another critical issue. With Andy now amongst them, his internal condensation collectors helped in providing them with a little more water, but it limited him to producing only five bottles every day or so.

The radroaches were as dangerous as ever as pest control positions remained vacant, and with the funeral department clocking on overtime, bodies were left where they were found until they could be retrieved for incineration—and sometimes the roaches got to them before Emile could, leaving a lot of closed box incineration ceremonies for any remaining relatives to grieve. Coupled with the recent heatwave, it made for optimal radroach breeding conditions and more people were coming into the infirmary for roach bites more than anything else these days. From there, more and more people wanted to stay, and the infirmary was also running out of room to accommodate everyone.

That reminded her of the conditions downstairs as well. Christine was their only liaison to her grandfather Stanley (as Susie still couldn't be trusted, and was acting increasingly despondent as the days passed), and would frequently check on him and his thinning team to give status reports back to Amata. He wasn't very enthusiastic about the temperature control ever being fixed despite working tirelessly day and night to keep the mainframe at an optimal temperature, which held priority above all else; he also told Christine if the core of the vault fell apart, he hoped that the fail-safe would kick in and the door would bust open because if it didn't, they'd be trapped inside 101 indefinitely.

Stanley surmised that the increasing radroach population would get to them before starvation did once the rations were gone, if they didn't kill each other first in last-ditch desperation attempts of survival in their steel tomb.

Amata didn't know which ending was the 'worst case' scenario and so tried not to think about either of them.

And then there was the recently enacted martial law, and her father's plans to take hold of the hospitality floor. Dorothy struggled to get a read on when he was planning to come down to carry out his negotiations, and so—worryingly—she couldn't confirm either if he was planning on 'negotiating' with his words, or with Security officers holding them all at gunpoint. It was also difficult for Dorothy to rendezvous with Butch to even provide these updates in person, as they were being careful to not raise the Overseer's suspicions in who she was really working for.

Dorothy was also as problematic as ever, but Butch kept her tame enough to be tolerable.

Amata dropped her head into her palms as she only became more overpowered by the problems she faced as the leader of these residents. She cried silently into her hands and wished to become so small, she could disappear through the metal plates of the floor and hide away. Being in Winona's apartment was supposed to bring her some kind of clarity, to answer her question of "what would Winona do?", to show her what she was missing, a way out she hadn't considered or at least give her the strength she needed to go forward with the hard decisions she had to make!—but being here only made her so unbearably aware of how powerless she was.

Through her tears, she unlocked her Pip-Boy and clicked through the menus to come to the vault messenger interface where Winona's name was pinned at the top. When Amata missed her so much that the pain made her cry for hours, she'd scroll through and read all their old conversations and reminisce over memories of better times, and it left her imagining all the things Winona might've been doing right now; was she out there making new friends, or fighting to survive like the rest of them? Was she just as alone, scared, and defeated as Amata felt right now? Did she find Dr. Parker? Was she with him right now, and was she living and breathing and enjoying whatever was out there?

Was she safe?

Was she happy?

Wherever Winona was out there in the great wide Somewhere, Amata hoped she was reading the same messages in her own inbox and thinking about all the same silly memories; of nights where sleepovers were spent cramming whole textbooks into their brains for important exams the next day; of lounging together in the Game Room with nobody else around, reading comic books and drinking Nuka-Cola in comfortable silence with their legs hooked over the others in a back booth; all the breakfasts they had together, either early in the morning or late at night when they became working adults with little free time, and although the exact conversations were lost to her over time, the hilarity of all their inside jokes lingered in Amata's synapses and made her smile despite the crippling sadness.

Ever since Winona left, however, Amata would send messages she knew would go unread… there was still something comforting about the ritual, like putting one's scattered thoughts on paper. It was the closest she could feel to her best friend when they were an entire world away from one another.

—Messenger Date: 8/19/77—

Almodovar_Amata (03:14): if you're there Winnie please tell me you're okay

Almodovar_Amata (03:15): please tell me you got out

Almodovar_Amata (04:27): if you can read this, Freddie and I are okay

Almodovar_Amata (04:27): I hope you find Dr. Parker… stay safe

—Messenger Date: 8/30/77—

Almodovar_Amata (00:27): Winona?

Almodovar_Amata (00:31): Winnie?

Almodovar_Amata (00:36): please answer me

Almodovar_Amata (00:36): please

Almodovar_Amata (02:09): I wish you were here

Almodovar_Amata (02:11): you would've been able to stop Wally

—Messenger Date: 9/20/77—

Almodovar_Amata (13:41): I know that you're too far away and the messenger doesn't work anymore

Almodovar_Amata (13:41): but I miss you… I think about you every single day

Almodovar_Amata (13:50): I hope you're okay

Almodovar_Amata (13:51): I love you

—Messenger Date: 10/03/77—

Almodovar_Amata (07:12): my birthday's coming up and I wish you were here for it

Almodovar_Amata (07: 12): it feels so selfish to think about that right now with everything else that's going on

Almodovar_Amata (07:13): but you've never missed my birthday, even on that year you got food poisoning

Almodovar_Amata (07:13): do you remember that?

Almodovar_Amata (07:14): you were singing happy birthday and bolted out of the room in the middle of it to throw up

Almodovar_Amata (07:15): I spent the rest of the day taking care of you and you felt awful about it for weeks no matter how many times I told you I didn't mind

Almodovar_Amata (07:15): …I'd laugh about it right now if I could

Almodovar_Amata (07:16): I wish you'd send me a birthday wish like you do every year

Almodovar_Amata (07:16): I don't know how you pulled that off when you were always so terrible with consistency

Almodovar_Amata (07:17): I mean are

Almodovar_Amata (07:18): ARE terrible with consistency

Almodovar_Amata (09:23): I'm sorry

Amata plugged in another message to send off as she quieted her sobbing—knowing that they, too, would go unread but she couldn't bring herself to say it to the walls.

—Messenger Date: 10/10/77—

Almodovar_Amata (21:01): I want to tell you something I never thought I'd tell you

Almodovar_Amata (21:02): not because I didn't want to, but because I always thought it was something you knew

Almodovar_Amata (21:02): and it's killing me to think that you may not have

Almodovar_Amata (21:03): but when you were around it was easier for me to be brave and do the right thing

Almodovar_Amata (21:03): you always knew what to do even when you were scared and you never let yourself get backed into a corner like this

Almodovar_Amata (21:04): but now that you're gone, I've been so lost and scared

Almodovar_Amata (21:06): I have nightmares about Wally all the time, and when I'm not having nightmares about him, I'm having nightmares about Stevie

Almodovar_Amata (21:06): I don't know what to do and I feel like I can't trust anyone, like I'm running around in circles

Almodovar_Amata (21:07): I can't see the point of anything anymore

Almodovar_Amata (21:07): I think Susie might have something to do with Mr. Gomez's death and I don't know how or why

Almodovar_Amata (21:07): there's no food or water and I have all these people who look up to me to fix their problems

Almodovar_Amata (21:08): so many people died after you left… some days I think they're the lucky ones

Almodovar_Amata (21:08): I know if you could read these I'd never send them because I wouldn't want to scare you or make you worry about me

Almodovar_Amata (21:09): Winnie I don't know what to do and I feel like I'm killing myself trying to see what I'm doing wrong and what I could do right

Almodovar_Amata (21:09): how would you stop my father and make him see that it doesn't have to be like this and that he's hurting us?

Almodovar_Amata (21:09): please tell me what to do

Almodovar_Amata (21:10): I just want to help everyone but I don't know how, I want the suffering and the fighting to stop

Almodovar_Amata (21:10): I want all of it to stop so much it hurts

[ENTER] Almodovar_Amata: I want you to come home_

"You alright in here, princess?"

Before Amata could send the final message, she turned back toward the voice which startled her, and saw the outline of a figure hovering within the front door to look in. When she recognized Butch's lazy lean into the broken doorframe, she quickly wiped her face through her sniffling, as if he didn't already know she was sitting on the floor in the dark and crying alone, and turned back on a hand to look at him.

"Were you following me, DeLoria?" She inquired instead of answering, and he ushered a dubious snort while stepping into the apartment in his cool-guy swagger with his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Might've," He answered casually as he stood beside her, just within the circle of light her Pip-Boy gave off and she tuned up the brightness so they could see each other better, practically illuminating Winona's entire bedroom. "Lucy'd blow a gasket if she knew you left the floor without sayin' diddly shit."

"Then let's just keep this between us. The last thing Lucy needs is to be worrying about me when she's got enough on her mind." Amata declared as she got up to her feet and brushed off her backside.

"…Not like it ain't any of my business, but what's with the sneakin' around, anyway? It's not like 'ya need permission t'go somewhere."

Silence was Amata's only answer as her dark eyes roamed across the bare walls and the unfurnished space as if she were seeing something he couldn't. He tried to remember what Winona's apartment looked like before it got trashed, but the only memory he had of it wasn't a very good one (the day Wally dragged him and Paul down there). He realized it wasn't so long ago that he was moving her things out so he could replace him and his mom there, but when she had her seizure, moving was the last thing on his mind. It didn't seem to matter now anymore now that the infirmary was their home for the time being, and it looked like the Overseer got to the rest of Winona's things before he could, anyway.

Knowing he might've been the last person to get ahold of everything pissed him off, but Butch hoped he moved out all the important stuff while he had the time to; not that he could tell what was important or not from her mountains of crap, though. At least he had the chance to clean the writing off the walls when he did, because Amata didn't need to see any of that about her best friend. It was too fucked up.

"I guess I just wanted to—… slip away for a little while, with no one knowing where I was. With no one coming to look for me." Amata admitted faintly, and Butch was suddenly very aware of how he was intruding. Shit. "I thought coming back to Winona's apartment might give me insight on a few things… like—like being closer to her would help me figure out what to do."

"'Bout what? Your old man?" He asked.

"…About everything." It was said so calmly, so diplomatically, so matter-of-factly—didn't he just walk in on her crying two seconds ago? "I keep thinking that if she were here, she'd know how to help everyone, wouldn't she?" A broken laugh escaped her, causing a hairline crack in her otherwise collected demeanor. "She'd probably come up with some wildly brilliant idea in getting everyone the food and water they need, and would know how to help Stanley downstairs to keep the vault together, and she'd know the exact words my father would need to hear to stop all this."

Amata forced herself to grow as cold and silent as the walls, as if fearing if she allowed herself to talk for so much longer she'd show something vulnerable—something she tried to keep to herself before his sudden arrival—but Butch already saw enough to understand how she was feeling, in a way.

A pitiful sigh escaped her as despair filled her eyes as she confessed with finality and shame in her tone. "I just—… I just wish she was here to tell me what to do…"

Butch could only clear his throat with an awkward pan of his eyes around the room, just to avoid direct eye contact. Of course, he never knew she was struggling like this, but he couldn't say he was surprised Amata kept it to herself. Hell, it's what dutiful citizens did in the vault; you kept your head down, your problems and sad, sappy emotions to yourself, you didn't let anyone in past the curtain and you didn't break the illusion that everything was apple pie and everything nice. He desperately hoped Amata wouldn't start getting all teary-eyed because his track record with crying women wasn't exactly spectacular, and a crying Amata felt like a whole different monster. Was being honest the right thing to do? Did she need to hear the hard truth, or did she need the sugar-coating, and fluffing up, and the apple pie and everything nice routine?

Shit, he wasn't good at sugar-coating, either, and the apple pie never did shit for anybody, anyway.

"Lo- Look, Amata, we got dealt a shitty hand. So what? Yeah, Parker's full'a bright ideas, but you ain't so bad yourself. Folks 'round here wouldn't be lookin' at you if they didn't think you couldn't turn this shithole around. You actually give a shit 'bout them! They can see it, and that's a helluva lot more than your old man's done in years. They expect their three squares and maybe a hot shower once in a while, not a God damn miracle—'ya know what—forget what Parker'd do, what would you do?" He declared as he gave an encouraging little backhanded pap to her shoulder. Or, well, he hoped it was encouraging. Fuck, you put him in a room with a moody broad and he suddenly doesn't know the definition of 'cool'.

At least it seemed to work, because while Amata regarded him with a strange look for his—…'encouragement', a gracious smile broke on her face. It didn't reach her eyes, but shit, it was something at least.

"…Butch, that was—" She paused, trying to find the right word. "Almost inspirational. Maybe even nice." She decided with a teasing smile.

"Haven't 'ya heard? Butch DeLoria doesn't do 'nice'." He grumbled in a playful remark.

"I think he can. When he wants to. So—… thank you." Amata said with a similar backhanded pap to his own bicep, clearly making fun of him. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. It'll be our little secret… just the two of us."

"Plus one."

The two froze and turned towards the voice in the doorway, with Butch shoving Amata protectively behind him upon recognizing the intruder—clean-cut and rigid, and tall with a flattop haircut. The bouncing, sickly green glow of Amata's Pip-Boy stretched across the floor to reflect off a pristine pair of Security combat boots, and something in the intruder's hand that Butch couldn't quite make out. His heart seized up in panic at all the possibilities as his terrified imagination spiraled and made him see things that meant bad endings for the two; he saw a baton, and a can of military-grade pepper spray, and a combat knife, and a gun all at once.

Amata's trembling hands dug tightly into the back of his jacket and he knew she saw it, too. Somehow it didn't seem to matter what the intruder was holding, because whatever it was, all they could see was Wally Mack holding something like one would hold a weapon, with grim purpose in his eyes.

Butch could only stare at his ex-best friend, his face twisting into seething anger at the coolness in Wally's own expression. There was the slightest tug of a smirk on his lips, with enough control that it was almost unnoticeable if Butch hadn't known what it looked like. He realized that the last time they saw each other was at the meeting, but the last time they were this close, Butch got a knuckle sandwich to the jaw and Wally got his nose bent. A frothing fury boiled up in the heart of his stomach, and he felt how it expanded inside him until it threatened to burst and consume him inside and out in hellfire.

He thought about the last things they said to each other; he thought about the way Amata looked when Susie dragged her into the clinic the day he attacked her; he thought about Paul dying without Wally even around to care; he thought about the way Wally looked clean through him at the meeting like they were perfect strangers… or something even less, but much more insulting than that.

The good memories ran away from the rage until Butch's mind was void of them as he looked into Wally's eyes, and he knew—he knew it like a condemning cosmic truth the stars had aligned for them millennia ago—that nothing was redeemable or forgivable between them. The gang leader was so certain of this that he knew, too, if he had the chance—

I might actually fuckin' kill him.

A pang of violence cut through him, all claws and blood-encrusted teeth and pulsating red behind his eyes.

I might actually kill this fuckin' prick.

"You've got some fuckin' nerve, showin' your bird shit face 'round here." Butch hissed wrathfully.

"It's funny you say that, as if you have any liberty over the territory around here… do you still think you own this vault?" Wally remarked patronizingly, as if he found their interaction amusing and it only made Butch angrier. When Wally took a step forward to block the doorway (and the only exit out), the Tunnel Snake could see more clearly what was in his hand—a standard issue baton condensed to the handle.

But there was something about the way he held it, with a heavy consideration about him as he followed Butch's line of sight to the weapon, that made him feel like Wally was ready to use it. It proved his concerns correct when Wally snapped his wrist and the baton extended to its full length in a series of harsh clicks that made the tension more suffocating.

Wally's gaze then turned to Butch once more, glaring and sharp.

"You should've stayed in your cozy little shithole downstairs, where the rest of us could have the luxury of forgetting about you." Wally went on, and Butch tried to pretend it didn't cut him at all. "How's your mother doing, by the way? Is she down there with the roaches like the rest of you, or did you turn your back on her like you did everyone else?"

"Don't you talk 'bout my fuckin' 'ma!" Butch boomed immediately with a dangerous step forward, and it took all of Amata's strength to haul him back by his arm, though she was too frightened to warn him with her mouth clamped shut—hands still trembling around his bicep as she remained hidden behind him. "And you're fuckin' one to talk about turnin' backs! I didn't think you'd be enough of a God damn moron t'go and join Security after all the shit they put us through! 'Ya know what that bastard's like, Wally, with the kinda shit he made us do!"

"You act like you were innocent in all of that, like you weren't itching to play 'big kid on the playground'... but now, unlike you, I'm not a kid anymore, Butch—and I've seen the Big Picture. Some of us have a responsibility to this vault. Some of us have a sense of pride, and duty, and loyalty in protecting us and ours," Wally gestured to the badge pinned to his chest and snorted out a gritting laugh, pretending as if he tried to stop it from coming out but it felt fully intentional as he shook his head. "What am I saying, though? It's not like you'd know a damn thing about any of that! You only ever cared about yourself and what people thought about your stupid fucking jacket. You're just a coward who thought he was a man."

"You shut the fuck up before I come over there and make 'ya swallow your nose!"

"Are you threatening an officer?" Wally whistled low, smiling condescendingly as Butch went on.

"I don't give a shit who 'ya are, I'll still knock you on your ass, Mack! You act like you're all changed and above everyone else, but you're still talkin' alotta shit like 'ya always did! 'Ya never say anythin' but pretentious bullshit I know 'ya don't believe, and now you keep runnin' your mouth at me about all this 'traitor' shit!" Butch couldn't stop himself through his ranting as his vision went red and his gut tightened and churned. "I didn't turn on you, asshole! I didn't turn my God damn back on nobody!"

"I think Paulie would say differently… thanks to you, though, it looks like he isn't saying much anymore, is he?"

The moment Paul's name left his mouth, Butch felt something unhinge inside him and he went flying at Wally with an enraged roar. Amata couldn't hold him back this time, and her terrified screams begging him to stop were lost to the heavy pulsing in his ears as he swung wildly. He could feel in the brunt of his knuckles the hits that landed across Wally's jaw, into his ribs, aiming for any opening he had as if possessed and barely noticing through his adrenaline where the hot-sharp pains of the baton rod struck him in return. He felt one or two to his shoulder and arm, one strike just grazing the side of his head when he jerked away, and the two continued grappling and punching and slamming into one another with every ounce of strength they had.

Butch finally had Wally pinned up against the wall from his unending assault, but left himself open and vulnerable. It wasn't until he felt Wally's weapon lashing him across the stomach did he lose his momentum, and his breath, in a single hit. The strike sent him crumpling to his knees, heaving and struggling to take in any air as he wheezed out a sick noise while holding his midsection—his lungs burning for mercy as Amata stayed behind him, half crying and half screaming still.

Wally's boots stepped into his vision and the gang leader could hear him panting, out of breath himself. Butch only had enough strength to lift his head, blood filling his inner lip, just to look him in the eyes out of spite.

"O- Of course you'd worm your way back into that cunt Parker's apartment," He spit raggedly as a blow to his brow spilled what looked more like oil than blood down the side of his face, everything muddy and tinted green from Amata's pip-boy light. "I can only imagine why… should've seen the si- signs early on that it was only a matter of time before you would turn on me—and for what? For her? Because she felt sorry for you and your sad sack of shit self thought it meant something?"

Wally struck him across the face with the handle of his baton without warning, sending Butch's bloodied spittle across the wall as the Tunnel Snake dropped to the ground, moaning painfully, and his body began aching everywhere at once as the adrenaline dried up and abandoned him on the floor. Butch didn't want to think about Winona like that—to send himself back to the moment where she kissed him, and wonder if it was an empty gesture and not what he thought it was, wished it was—shit, Butch couldn't muster even the smallest amounts of energy to tell Wally to go fuck himself on his own nightstick.

Just as his bloodied teeth and split lips parted to form the curse, the weight of a boot bore down on the back of Butch's head and slowly applied pressure until he gave a weak groan instead, his jaw throbbing.

"And I bet you miss her, don't you? I bet she hasn't even thought about you once since she left. I mean, why would she? Look at you! You're fucking pathetic, and pitiful, and you always have been!" Wally laughed over him until his voice dropped to a dangerous and truth-bearing tone, and Butch's chest truly felt heavy at the thought, at the doubt that filled it. "Honestly, I'd almost feel sorry for you if it wasn't for the fact that I've wanted to beat the living piss out of you for a very, very, very, long time." Wally ground his heel down into the back of Butch's head until he was yelling in pain, and then finally eased off when he was satisfied. The Tunnel Snake could hardly bring himself to blink away the blurriness in his vision, struggling to concentrate on making the faint ringing in his ears stop.

"And you," Wally went on as if bored, and Butch could hear Amata's crying stop immediately as if she were holding her breath. He felt Wally breeze over him in a side step to cross Winona's bedroom, his footfalls slow and predatory, like he was stalking. "You and I still have unfinished business, don't we? You still haven't told me where your little bitch friend's gone!" He sang. "Don't you worry, Amata… we have all the time in the world until the lights turn back on. All the time in the world to get what I want out of you, and to make up for all the years of humiliation—the insults—the way you'd look down on me like I was a puddle of vomit in your way… yeah, we've got time, and Parker isn't around to save you this time, either. Just like before."

When the full realization of Amata being in imminent danger bore down on the gang leader, the need to protect her cramped his chest and gave him enough strength to lift his head, to push himself back up onto his hands and knees, his blood and spit stringing from his cheek to where it had pooled on the floor to lift his gaze from his hands and knees position. Wally was taking his time with each step he took to come closer to her, ensuring that each move was calculated so she couldn't get past him or escape successfully if she even tried. Amata looked so small and terrified as he cornered her, trembling and quietly sobbing—looked even smaller than she did that day in the clinic, when Butch barely recognized her in the doorway.

The memory was enough to make him force himself up to his knees from his hands despite his dizzied vision making it a Herculean task; and ignore that what he was about to do would probably get him fucking killed, though he couldn't bring himself to link the now thoughts to the after thoughts. He didn't care in that moment, he just had to get Wally's attention off Amata.

"You're just like your old man."

Wally stilled the moment he heard the words croaking out of his ex-brother, snapping back over his shoulder as if he couldn't register that Butch had really said it, and so condemningly at that. The Tunnel Snake smiled gleefully despite the copper in his mouth at the way the words settled in Wally's eyes, how it hurt him just to hear it, how it angered him, and how the look of it isn't true, but what if it is? was all over his face. Butch continued on as Amata stayed in the corner, her eyes wide and fearful.

"'Ya heard me, Mack! You're just like Allen, man… look at 'ya!… A spittin' image of the biggest piece of shit that ever walked the vault—and that maintenance guy, George, tried cozyin' up t'little kids!" Butch congratulated mockingly as he rocked himself up to his feet to get to a better tactical position, but otherwise tried to reserve his strength. "Can't imagine how scared your poor 'ma is of 'ya the moment 'ya walk through the door."

The moment he mentioned poor Gloria Mack being afraid of her own son, Wally's bird-face screwed up into an ugly grimace, his beady eyes set aflame in horrific fury as he turned back to face Butch fully, leaving Amata immediately forgotten in his redirected ire. He was already walking back to Butch with white and tight knuckles shaking angrily around his weapon as the Tunnel Snake kept talking, his thoughts working endlessly to find an opening to get the upper hand.

"'Ya ask me, though, I think you're more of a bastard than even he is! 'Ya carry on the family tradition, yet? Maybe smack your 'ma 'round a little bit? Your hands itch like Stevie's did?" The taunt continued as he spit out the blood in his mouth, but it kept running from his nose and slicked his teeth more.

Wally's baton abruptly swung down upon him with such force it cut through the air with the sharpness of a knife despite its blunt impact. His wrist impacted with Butch's forearm as he threw his arm above his head to block the oncoming blow, causing intense pain to radiate down his arm—but his other fist was ready, and delivered a devastating punch to Wally's groin.

The weapon dropped from Wally's hand with a shocked yelp at the pain, clasping himself as he dropped to his knees and doubled over, retching sickly with his forehead touching the metal flooring. Butch fumbled for the baton on the ground with how his hands shook and his body swayed and fought against him to stay upright. Once it was firmly in his grasp, and he knew he'd have the energy to use it as he had to, he turned back on Wally and swung; hitting him across his head to disorient him so he went sprawling to the floor, bleeding out, and Butch kept swinging until Wally was crawling away from him to the doorway to find an escape from the torrent.

It only provided Butch with a wall to hold on to so he could drive power behind his kicks as he planted them repeatedly into Wally's side.

The baton was immediately forgotten, dropped to the floor behind him. Eventually he had Wally curled up into the foot of the wall in the fetal position, protecting his head with his arms as much as he could while Butch alternated between stomping and striking him with his own fists just to satiate his rage when the nightstick didn't deliver the sounds he wanted to hear, when it didn't deliver the crunch he wanted to feel under his ruptured knuckles. The Tunnel Snake didn't care how he or the situation looked, didn't care how fucked up it all was, how angry he felt, how much he thought he deserved to do this to Wally—he only felt uncontrollable and yet more powerful than ever, wanting nothing more than to beat the shit out of his ex-best friend until he stopped moving… until something higher than God felt He had to pray for Wally's sorry fucking soul.

Butch never knew he could hate someone so God damn much, until it made him sick.

"Butch—! Butch, stop! Stop!" Amata had intervened long ago, but the boiling wrath in his ears (or was that the ringing still?) drowned her in and out of hearing. Eventually Butch felt hands latching around his waist to yank him off a battered Wally, and he momentarily broke free to deliver another swift kick that made him groan and writhe weakly.

"The fuckhead deserves it!" Butch boomed, spitting and livid, and that was definitely his ears ringing. "He deserves it! I figured you of all people'd wanna go at him!"

"Don't you assume this is what I want, that this is anything close to what I want!" Amata barked back at him and he went still, jaw tight at the tortured look in her eyes as the last of her tears rolled down her face. Her mouth opened and then clacked shut as if she thought to explain herself and then decided she didn't have to, but then her eyes went past him and all the color suddenly drained from her complexion.

Butch turned back in alarm at her reaction to see Wally struggling to push himself up from the ground, his free hand gripping the 10mm that was holstered to his belt seconds ago. The moment Butch's memories took him back to Tom Holden wheezing out his last breath, his thoughts finally linked to a flittering spark of pure instinct and he shoved a petrified Amata into the living room and out the front door.

"Go, go! Run!" Was all he could yell as the two went hurdling down the hallway, Butch too terrified to look back as he tried to keep his swimming vision on the way ahead. The corridor seemed to stretch in their escape, pulling longer to unfathomable distances with the stairs moving further and further away from them despite every pounding footstep they took towards it. Each passing second felt like a year going by as time slowed and echoed its strain in the pounding in his head, feeling as if his legs were sinking into mud he couldn't see, pulling back on each burning calf with each slow step he took—could his legs go any fucking faster?!—

POOMB.

RA-TING.

Amata turned the corner and went tearing up the stairs as the deafening sound tore through the small space, seeming to ricochet in volume off the walls in the same instance that Butch felt a searing heat shred through his right ear, sending him stumbling forward with a hand clutched to the side of his head as liquid warmth spread between his fingers. It immediately planted his boots to the ground as fear stilled him into place when he pulled his hand away to find blood spilling across his palm and registered the way it dripped down his neck, warm and surreal.

Butch finally looked back.

In the thin light of the blackout, he could make out Wally standing at the opposite end of the hallway, his face contorted, and bruised, and bloodied and gruesome with his smoking 10mm held between his unsteady hands. Butch remained frozen as he heard the hammer of the gun hitch back, the sound as equally loud as the bullet that just clipped his ear to bounce off the forward wall, and despite feeling how the dwindling seconds of escaped him—despite knowing he was literally staring Death back in its skeletal face—he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, his body and his mind betrayed him and locked up against all instinct as he stared down the gun's barrel.

Wally was swaying himself, suddenly colliding into the wall to get some support under him as he breathed raggedly, his eyes unable to pin themselves on Butch long enough to let the second bullet fly, and his demeanor changed when a whirring within the bowels of Vault 101 rumbled under their feet. Butch could see realization dawning in his eyes, as if he had suddenly remembered himself in the situation, and just as the first few lights of the living quarters flickered into bright life, the gun was retired back into its clip before they could even burn in their full brightness.

Butch didn't have the chance to process the shift as the two only stared at each other, pained and defeated, and he didn't have to look Wally in the eyes to know that this wasn't over. This was only the start of something nuclear because Wally never forgave and he never forgot… especially not now, when he was clearly convinced Butch had committed the most atrocious crime against him of befriending Winona Parker.

The gang leader was the first to break away and fall back in a cautious back step, ensuring the gun wouldn't come back out and Wally wouldn't follow before turning his back to bolt up the stairs after Amata with a hand clutched to his bleeding ear, slipping on a step on uneven footing in his escape as his vision doubled again, his pounding head catching up to him. Wally remained in the hallway, seething as he gripped his side and sagged down the wall he'd been using to keep himself up until he met the floor, his eyes rolling shut as he swallowed the blood filling his mouth—and he stayed like that, for he didn't know how long, until he had the energy to drag himself up to his feet.

When Wally could finally limp away, he spat hateful curses under his breath, filling his mouth with venom despite the blood already there, and he was furious at how the situation got so out of hand; how it fell out of his favor the moment he let Butch get under his skin, and the bastard always knew how to. When he vowed to go after Butch, he also vowed that he'd never again fall prey to his antics. He wasn't a 9-year-old that got upset by being called chicken anymore… he wasn't a 9-year-old that found amusement in stupid pranks and name-calling anymore.

Not when he could do so much worse.

In his haste to leave before the cameras turned back on, he didn't bother to clean up the only evidence left behind of their encounter ever having taken place; the blood smears remained on the floors and walls of Winona's abandoned apartment, nothing more than additional secrets taken into the chrysanthemum wallpaper to never be spoken again; silently bearing accusation unto the nightstick that was also left behind.

The hospitality floor was quiet. Though the lights had since turned on in the shortest blackout the residents ever witnessed, bewilderment quickly overtook the relief of the power returning when Amata spilled into the room with Butch slung around her shoulders to help keep him upright. Most of his remaining energy faded in their escape down the final staircase to the infirmary, as his vision swam and waves of dizziness crashed upon him, his feet outright refusing to cooperate. In his barely conscious state he could barely see how the awake residents looked on with dreadful faces at the sight of him, battered, his face covered in blood, spilling scarlet down the front of his jumpsuit.

"Lucy! Lucy! Somebody get her!" Amata cried out desperately, further rousing a commotion out of the spectators craning their necks over the crowding of heads to see what was going on. Lucy walked out of the main infirmary at the cry of her name with Andy gliding out to follow.

"Oh, my goodness! What happened?" She exclaimed, flying over.

"Mister DeLoria, what a shame! He usually seems in better spirits—" Andy droned, chipper and unaware of the urgency of the situation.

"Please, just help him!" Amata interrupted sharply.

The elderly woman moved quickly into action and took up Butch's other arm to sling it around her as Andy puttered behind, attempting to be helpful but clueless about why everyone was panicking. As if Butch could tell he was finally safe, his legs responded accordingly and finally went slack, buckling out from under his body. The only thing that kept him from plummeting to the floor were the women on either side of him, carrying him off into the clinic. They passed the bedridden patients toward the back office and came upon Ellen DeLoria—who had been sitting on her own cot, poking glumly at her mostly uneaten dinner while waiting for her son to join her—until she heard Amata's cries and was quick to receive them.

"Butchie! Oh my God—my poor sweet baby—! Stop, stop—Amata, give him to me—I've got him—!" Ellen proclaimed as she gently maneuvered herself into Amata's position under Butch's shoulder so the latter was freed, and then assisted Lucy in carrying him to the back office where Dr. Parker's old desk was jerry-rigged into an examination table. Christine was already preparing the medical cart nearby with her bandaged hands.

Before Amata could usher another word to either woman, the door rolled shut in her face with the lock clicking shut, keeping her out. The last she saw of Butch was his gaze fringing on dazed and unconscious, his body draped bonelessly across the examination table, with Lucy hunching over him to reflect a penlight in each of his eyes and Christine laying a towel to catch the blood coming from his chipped ear. The shades were pulled quickly down over the office window to keep prying eyes from looking in as residents collected around the Overseer's daughter, and she felt their eyes on her back despite the way their murmurs died to stifling quiet. Amata forced her chin to stop wobbling despite the fresh tears coming forth as she looked down into her shaking hands, only to see Butch's blood streaked across her palms and she hurriedly tore them away from her immediate vision.

"Alright, show's over, folks! Let's get everyone back in bed, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." Came a voice over the whispers. It was Mr. Brotch—Edwin—shooing the others away. The onlookers begrudgingly broke away to return to bed as he hobbled up to Amata's side. "I see that Mister DeLoria still can't stay out of trouble for long… at least some things don't have to change around he—oh."

The old teacher finally took notice of the blood on her hands, flaking red in the grooves of her skin riding along the edges of her fingernails, and when he touched her shoulder, Amata flinched with her expression breaking in pained disbelief and a strangled sob escaping her. She couldn't look at her hands any more than she wanted to think back on what happened in Winona's apartment, and yet her mind violently restrained her and forced her eyes open to replay every punch, every kick, every strike of the baton and splatter of blood marring the floor in vivid yet rushed detail; like a movie on constant fast forward, rewind, repeat that she couldn't stop. It clutched her dizzying thoughts with clawing hands and sinking nails she couldn't rip herself free from.

It never occurred to her that anyone could, or would, fight for her the way Butch did to fend off Wally by taking his attention away from her with no care for his own safety. Amata wasn't stupid, the moment the taunt left Butch's mouth she knew exactly what he was doing in berating Wally—and while it made her furious that he'd do something so reckless, it also made her feel so, so guilty.

Because it was all her fault, wasn't it? That Butch tried to protect her, and now he was lying in the infirmary, half-alive with a concussion or worse? He was shot, for Heaven's sake! Amata heard the bullet ping off the wall and was too terrified to look back, because all she expected to see was Butch's body dropping behind her, and God it wouldn't have been a scene she would ever recover from. Seeing him climbing up the stairs after her was the most relief she'd felt in a long time, but like anything good in the vault as of late, it was short-lived when he confirmed he'd been shot (verbatim, "I think the motherfucker shot me") and pitched forward into her.

Amata felt if she had at least told him she needed time alone, or if she hadn't gone at all, none of this would have happened to either of them; if she could have acted instead of running away to hide amongst her memories of Winona and crippling fears of failure, they all would have been better off for it… and now none of them were winning.

"Let's get you cleaned up." Edwin muttered calmly to her, his hand still upon her shoulder. Amata nodded in solemn agreement, though her thoughts were too frayed to reply consciously, and he led her out of the infirmary and back onto the floor. Together they stepped around those trying to settle back into bed for a second time that night, and met with the stairs which led deeper into the hospitality wing for the public bathroom on that level.

The walk was silent, almost grating aside from the clunk-step of Edwin's lop-sided gait on his crutches. When they arrived at the women's bathroom, Amata went in and he followed suit, unflinching of his own intrusion in the space as the opposite sex when the stalls turned up empty. He stood near the sinks as she stooped over the washing bucket in the corner to scoop out a meager cup of clean water; as the Overseer cut the taps and showers weeks ago, the bathrooms held a tall plastic bucket of water for hand washing, face scrubbing, and teeth brushing just to keep themselves sane. They made do otherwise with quick, cold sponge baths to combat the body odor of many people in their small clinic space, or at Lucy's suggestion, used whatever wet wipes they could scrounge up for baths.

Bringing the cup to the sink, Amata took several generous pumps of soap leftover in the adjoining dispenser and spilled the water sparingly into her hands, turning it and the vigorous suds a nauseating shade of red that marred the porcelain white of the sink bowl. When she could bring herself to look in the adjoining mirror, a smear of Butch's blood under her chin made itself known, and scrubbed it furiously until her own skin was a screaming red. Edwin remained silent beside her, leaning against the wall to keep his weight off his crutch as Amata dried her face with a handful of paper towels and looked to her blood-streaked clothes in the mirror. It'd long since crusted into the thick, industrial fabric of her jumpsuit, and turned into such a gloomy maroon shade it was almost black.

She remembered the way it dripped down Wally's face in Winona's apartment—it looked black, too, back then—made him look positively inhuman and she shut her eyes at the memory with a stabilizing intake of breath.

"We'll see about getting you a clean replacement," Edwin finally spoke, seeming almost reluctant to given her current state—like a single word would shatter her. "…Are you okay?"

"I will be, once I hear from Lucy that Butch's okay, too." She declared firmly while unzipping her jumpsuit to her waist to shimmy out of the sleeves, tying them about her hips to hide Butch's blood as best she could.

"Well, the boy's got a skull thick enough to make up for his lack of self-preservation, so I wouldn't worry about him too much… although he looked pretty serious coming through here. Care to share what happened?"

"Wally happened." The explanation came to his apparent surprise, as his brows arched toward his hairline before dissipating to uneasy acceptance with a heavy sigh and a head wag. "There's been bad blood between the two since Winona left—"

"The fuckhead deserves it! He deserves it! I figured you of all people'd wanna go at him!"

"—and I'd rather not go into any more details than that." Amata concluded, which Edwin accepted with an understanding nod. "For now, I'll let Lucy and Christine and his mother worry about him until I have to worry about him."

"That makes it sound like there's more pressing matters on your mind now." His inflection was questioning and yet his tone sounded all-knowing, his brows furrowing over his eyes.

The Overseer's daughter was momentarily silent as she leaned her weight against the sink and put her attention into her Pip-Boy, opening up the messenger interface she last logged into and pulled up a name to the top she hadn't messaged in months—a name she had deleted weeks ago, in fact, and typed out two quick message to the recipient;

—Messenger Date: 10/10/77—

Almodovar_Amata (21:53): we need to talk

Almodovar_Amata (21:53): come to the clinic's women's bathroom right now

"Amata?" Edwin called when she still hadn't answered him.

"I'm inviting someone to join in on our meeting here," Closing her Pip-Boy, she went to the bathroom door and locked it from their side to secure their privacy. "You're right... about something else being on my mind right now. Actually, there's a lot on my mind, and there has been for weeks now. I'm floundering here, Edwin, I need help."

"All you need to do is say the word. Anything I can do to help, just tell me what you need."

"First, I want to focus on how to get everyone the food and water they need, which means securing a reliable and ongoing supply source… but for that I'll need an absolute team effort from everyone in the infirmary who can help. It'll be hard for many of us to put in the kind of work I have in mind, so I want them to know I'm hearing them and they're being taken care of." Amata folded her arms loosely over her stomach as she propped her shoulder into the door, keeping an ear to it for when her message recipient arrived. Hopefully, he was still awake. "My second initiative is to expand out of the clinic so we can accommodate more people and give everyone the room they need. We all have to share a space and it hasn't been easy, so I'm hoping the extra room could make things less territorial around here."

"A cure to vault-wide hunger," Edwin clucked with a brief laugh. "As if that wasn't already ambitious… for more space, I'd recommend falling back to the classroom. It's only the next level down and we have direct access to it from the back end of the infirmary here, and I still have authorization over the space so I can open it up for us. We can secure the hallway on the opposing end that leads out to the main wing and seal it off, maybe turn the classroom into a bunk room by unbolting the desks to move them out. Getting a food and water supply going, however—… that's a tall order to fill, and we can't just make either out of thin air."

Something seemed to click in the teacher's eyes at the sentence, as he stroked his chin and ideas began tumbling rapidly in his eyes.

"Edwin—? What're you thinking?" Amata prodded eagerly.

"Science project."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Let's think back to middle school science, here. I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before, but we can build condensation collectors. They pull moisture from humid air into a water drip we can bottle up, and would be a more archaic design of Andy's own collectors." He detailed as he looked around the bathroom to find somewhere comfortable to sit so he wouldn't have to keep standing. Having to resign himself to the only seating available, he clunked himself over to the nearest stall, set down the lid of the women's toilet seat, and lowered himself onto it with a comfortable sigh. Amata hovered around the stall door just to be in his field of vision. "Make no mistake, proper showers still won't be an option and I suspect rationing will need to be kept in place with, hopefully, fewer restrictions. It's at least doable if we can build the collectors and find a place to plant them."

"The maintenance levels could work for a humid place… but what about the greenhouses? The decommissioned ones?" She suggested. "They're not growing food anymore, anyway, and they shut the rain systems off before this all happened, but they're individually temperature and moisture controlled."

"It's a start, if there's still power flowing through them and if we can get them back on for our purposes." He agreed.

"It's definitely a start. But, while food, water, and space will make things easier on everyone, the struggle won't be worth the fight if we lose the vault itself." Amata lamented as she kept her arms folded loosely over her stomach, stepping back on a leg in front of his claimed stall.

"...You seem to know something the rest of us don't, don't you." Edwin inquired, though it sounded more like a statement than a question, to which she nodded.

"Our most important asset to the vault right now is struggling downstairs, and he needs help." Amata explained with a troubled look. "I've been talking with Christine about Stanley, and she's told me he's being overworked to drop-dead exhaustion between keeping the reactors cool and other general maintenance work. With Floyd and Paul—… gone, along with Winona, it's just him and one or two other people down there doing work meant for a 6-person team. I want to send people downstairs to help him in any way we can."

"That's extremely alarming news, Amata, and I commend your taking initiative, but how do you plan on sending untrained hands downstairs to help when Stanley wouldn't have the time to train them, anyhow? The only one amongst us who's maintenance-trained is Freddie, but he's a jukebox mechanic. Hardly vault technician material."

"Well, a jukebox technician is better than nothing," She concluded. "I'm not saying any of us could do what Stanley can, but if he had a larger team to take the burden off him, maybe he could focus squarely on keeping the vault together while our people take care of the smaller repairs. Training manuals can go a long way and I'm sure there's people around here willing to volunteer if it means helping."

"I sincerely hope you're right and it's not just misplaced, though well-intended, optimism."

"That's part of the change, Edwin. Everyone will have a part to play in bringing us all to a better place, which is why I said I want them to know they're being taken care of in exchange for their flexibility and service, and I need them to know that they're also protected here, from the radroaches and Security and my father." Amata explained.

"The roaches are an easy, though risky, fix." Edwin began as he took up his Pip-Boy to tap through the menus. From where Amata stood, she couldn't see what he was searching for. "I've been thinking of this one for some time and so I've kept tabs on the open positions your father's made—there's still two pest control positions available for pest control technicians, and whoever applies will be compensated with extra rations and water."

Amata came over when he offered his wrist up, and she brought his Pip-Boy closer to better read the job application, her brow knitting in thought the longer she read. "He updated it yesterday to include shower tokens, too. He's getting desperate."

"If we can get at least one resident to volunteer and land the jobs, it could give us more food and water to share if they're willing to split it, and as a show of good faith they can keep the shower tokens for themselves in exchange for the cut. Getting two residents to volunteer, however, would be even better." Edwin agreed with a certain nod.

"But would it be a good idea, sending our people up if he still plans on taking the infirmary?"

"That's another problem in itself, isn't it?" He said thoughtfully, seeming to stare off into a distance Amata couldn't see as he tried to think of a solution—as if the damage the Overseer's hands had done could have a solution. "You're right in that we'll have to find some way to protect ourselves against him if he arrives with Security at his back… we lose the infirmary, we lose everything we have here and we'll never have a chance of recovery let alone survival. We've been able to connect with one another in a way we hadn't before, where we've rebuilt a life all our own in a safe space where his word is no longer our law. We've broken free of Vault 101's cycle and are coming into an identity he no longer has control over, and if he's a smart man, that alone should scare him."

"Then that just makes us even more of a target," Amata pointed out worriedly.

"We still have no idea why he hasn't led his attack yet?"

Amata only shook her head in the negative, just as a timid knock came at the locked bathroom door. She swiftly flew over and called firmly out despite the metal between her and the intruder.

"Who is it?" She asked.

"Amata, it's me." A small voice responded, partly confused, partly anxious, and she unlocked the door to let her message recipient in. Freddie Gomez's eyes nearly popped free of his head when he saw her suit covered in blood, despite her best attempt in covering most of it. "Holy crap—!"

"It's not mine," She quickly reassured with the waving of her hands in front of her. "It's—… It's Butch's. He was attacked."

"What? Is—is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's going to be fine," Amata replied despite the dreadful uncertainty that filled her heart, and pulled Freddie inside so she could shut and re-lock the bathroom door.

"Freddie—? What're you doing here?" Edwin addressed, confused by his unexpected presence as he walked the bathroom with a blush in his cheeks, obviously uncomfortable at being in the women's bathroom.

"He- Hey, Mr. Brotch." He greeted with a meek wave and looked to the Overseer's daughter apprehensively. "Honestly, I'm not really sure why… but I've found out the hard way before not to be on Amata's bad side when she tells you 'we need to talk'."

"The past doesn't matter given the current circumstance… you didn't tell Susie you were coming, did you?"

Freddie shook his head, still blatantly confused. "No, no, I was with my mom when I got your message and she was already asleep so I just snuck out. What's this all about, if it's not about Winona?"

"I don't really know how to open this conversation delicately, or explain everything in a way that'll make complete sense, so I'm just going to jump into it," Amata admitted as she looked to Freddie. "I need to know everything that you might know about the Security armory and how to break into it."

It was a long moment of Freddie and Edwin staring at her, gob smacked and speechless, where the two exchanged shocked looks with one another before pivoting back to her.

"Amata," Edwin began worriedly. "Why would you ever need to break into the armory for?"

"This is the 'explain everything in a way that makes sense' part I mentioned…" She sighed, reluctant to speak or turn back to the events of the night when she just wanted to look toward the future. "When Wally attacked us, Butch gave back just as bad as he got. Wally will need medical help, which I am not willing to give if it means he has to come down here or be around everyone else, but he can't show up to the rest of Security in his state without finding some way to explain his injuries to them and my father. I think he'll pin it all on Butch."

"What—I—he—" Freddie sputtered, uncertain of how to process all the information just loaded onto him. "What's this got to do with the armory, though?"

"Although we'll argue self-defense, it's still violent assault of a Security officer. Wally will fabricate some story about Butch attacking him first, or being belligerent or some other story, which they'll absolutely believe because of Butch's past. He'll get twisted into being the villain in all this and to make matters worse, my father could still be planning to reclaim the infirmary. I'm worried that whatever story Wally makes up could push my father into going through with taking the territory and give him the opportunity to arrest Butch in the process… we can't lose the clinic, and Butch's an invaluable asset. We cannot afford to lose him, either."

I can't afford to lose him, Amata tagged on mentally, but wasn't so keen on saying so aloud.

"You want to steal Security's weapons so we can defend our space," Edwin realized, his expression understanding yet conflicted by the solution.

"And to show my father he won't be able to push us around any longer." She added determinedly.

"I- Isn't this all based on if Wally would even go to the Overseer and tell him Butch attacked him though? Maybe he won't, an- and your dad won't come?" Freddie interjected hopefully, wringing his hands nervously in front of him at the idea of a violent confrontation taking place.

"He will. It's what Wally does, he does awful things like this and then manipulates and twists the situation to get what he wants and gets off scot-free," Amata seethed. "It's how he got Winona arrested months ago, for that break in into the private archives—that was him—and it's how he got the job in Security despite what he did to me! And now he's going to twist this situation, too, and convince my father he didn't do this, either. I know how my father will react, Freddie… he will come looking for Butch and he will have Security with him to arrest him and force the rest of us out."

"Then we don't have any time to waste, we need to make preparations to receive him. Arming ourselves really might be the only option we have." Edwin declared as he held onto the toilet paper dispenser in the stall to pull him up to his feet, taking hold of his crutch once more to help him keep his balance.

"Are you both crazy?!" Freddie cried out in panicked disbelief, his eyes flicking back-and-forth between the two of them. "You can't just—! Steal guns and stand off against Security! Have you both forgotten about what happened to Mr. Holden?"

"It's because of what happened to Mr. Holden that we have to take a stand! For him, and Mrs. Holden, and all the other people we've lost or who've been wronged because of people like my father, and because of those on Security who're opportunistic and using martial law to target us instead of protect us!" Amata responded emotionally, throwing her hands out at her sides in an exasperated manner. "This is for Jonas! This is for—for Christine's mom and baby sister, for Jim and Janice's parents—for Winona and Dr. Parker—for your dad, Freddie! If I had any other choice to stop my father and get Security to leave us alone, I'd do it, but this is the only option we have to put a stop to this before it gets even worse and we lose more people. This is the only option we have for right now if we want to survive this."

Freddie stood tensely with his hands clutched at his sides into shaky fists, unable to lift his eyes to Amata nor Edwin, though his expression was twisted by conflict, and fear. In his eyes Amata could see him struggle to make the right decision, struggle with what to even say, and somehow, Amata saw herself there; she saw everything in him that she had spent the last few weeks fighting within herself, and she sympathetically laid a hand on his shoulder that made his gaze finally connect with hers.

"I know you're scared, Freddie… I know you want to do the right thing, and I know you're probably asking yourself what your dad would've done if he were still here." Amata mumbled with a reassuring squeeze to his shoulder. "You think 'if only he was here, he'd know what to do', because he always seemed to know the answer, didn't he? And even if he didn't, he was good at finding a solution and fixing the problem."

Freddie's face crumpled into heartbreak with his eyes tearing up quickly as he resolved himself to a weak nod.

"…When I was a kid, he told me it was his job—fixing all the bad things and making people happy, and making sure they knew as long as he was around, they'd be safe. He said it was important that people knew he cared about them, and that when I was older, he wanted me to show people I cared about them, too. Just like him." He confessed tearfully. "…It's like when he died, everything went to Hell. I miss him more than anything."

"We miss him, too, Freddie. Your father was a great man, and to know him as I did was an honor." Edwin reassured with a confirming nod.

"And you're not alone in the way you feel," Amata agreed with her hand dropping from his shoulder to gesture to herself. "I've felt the same way about Winona. She always seemed to have an answer for any problem, and I—… I looked up to her in a way I couldn't even look up to my own father. I kept telling myself that if she was here, I'd know what to do because she would know what to do, but then I realized I'm in her place, now, where people are looking up to and expect me to have all the answers to their problems. I have a responsibility to do right by them, even if I'm scared of making the wrong decision, because I have to put trust in the faith they have in me. I have to trust myself that I know the answer."

With that, Amata gave a back-handed pap to his shoulder that had his stare blink between her and the connection of her hand as she recalled Butch's earlier (awkwardly placed though well-intended) encouragement to her.

"So forget about what your dad would've done… what would you do, Freddie?"

Freddie's face flooded with reverence for Amata's question as absolute clarity formed in his eyes on the exact answer to that. He seemed to know almost immediately what he had to do, and while she was jealous of how quickly he reached such certainty, it also relieved her. When he took out a beat up wallet out of his back jumpsuit pocket, held together by raggedy stitches and duct tape, he flipped it open to show a photo in the window slot that Amata easily recognized as Freddie as a young boy in a baseball uniform, sitting in a diner booth with Mr. Gomez's arm slung around his shoulders—a proud smile overtaking the whole of his face with half-eaten meals sitting in front of them both.

Leafing open the back most pocket of the wallet, Freddie produced a printed keycard with Mr. Gomez's stoic face on it.

He offered it to Amata, who took it gingerly as if it were a delicate item of great importance to him.

"Mr. Wolfe gave me this after they found my dad… the wallet was his. I kept it with me and was supposed to give this card back to Security, but I kept forgetting and nobody ever came around to collect it. It's standard protocol that when a guard dies, his family has to turn over everything he used for work—weapons, clearance cards, even uniforms."

"This was your dad's Security clearance card?" Edwin inquired, perplexed, as Amata examined it.

"Yeah, and it'll give you access to anywhere in this vault that only Security's allowed into, so their headquarters, the prison, the armory, even the Overseer's office. All you've gotta do is swipe it at the door, and the code to all the weapons lockers is 5291 unless they changed it."

"Freddie, this is brilliant!" Amata declared, causing a deep, sheepish blush to come to his cheeks as he hooked a hand to the back of his neck and gave a casual shrug.

"I know you told me to forget about what my dad would've done, but deep down, I know he would've done something like this if he was still here. He'd protect everyone, even if it meant turning on Security and his friends there." He said with no amount of uncertainty, his deep eyes showing hope in that his dad could've been proud of him. "I want things to get better, too… I want to help you protect everyone, and if there really isn't any other option, then I'll do what I have to. Especially if it means bringing Winona back."

"Thank you. Thank you. Do you mind if I hold on to his card for now—?" Freddie shook his head, mumbling out that he didn't mind at all, and Amata tucked it into the ankle of her boot to conceal it safely. "There's a long road ahead of us, but I think we're off to a wonderful start. Tomorrow morning, I want to host an after breakfast meeting to talk about our plans and see what the others think. I want to open the floor for feedback, concerns, or even other ideas if anyone has any. I refuse to go through with something as dangerous as stealing from Security without warning them first, so if they want to leave, they can. However, I want to make it clear to them that they're still welcome to stay and we'll still protect them. I'm tired of people who need help the most being left behind, and I won't allow it to happen here. Not now, not ever again."

"Then we have the whole night on our side to work," Edwin reprised, with both Amata and Freddie shooting him with a surprised look. "What, you think they built Rome in a night? This vault won't rebuild itself in a night, either, and we need to ensure we have a proper and full plan to present to the other residents tomorrow… it'll help convince them that working in maintenance and killing roaches is a good idea."

"Wait, what about the roaches—? And maintenance—?" Freddie guffawed, to a startled laugh from Amata at their old teacher's response. "I mea- mean, I'm all for whatever plan you've got, but maybe a little explanation would be nice—?"

"Then we've got no time to waste," Amata reaffirmed valiantly. "Let's get started."